Human Nature In Its Second Estate

The Religion of Fallen Man

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: 11-11

Genre: Speech

Track: 20

Dictation Name: RR131L21

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s - 1970’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Our Scripture is Psalm 115:1-9. And our subject, the religion of fallen man. Psalm 115:1-9. The religion of fallen man.

“Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.”

Man having been created in the image of God, cannot escape God nor God’s purpose in creating man. Even in his rebellion or revolution, man’s actions reveals God’s purposes, although deformed. Man was created to live in paradise, and he seeks even in his sin continually to recreate a paradise. He was created to exercise dominion, and he seeks to do so, however perverse his attempt. He was created in the image of God which is knowledge, and he seeks knowledge however wrong his purposes therein. Moreover, he was created to magnify and to glorify God, to worship Him. And fallen man also is inescapably religious. But now his religion is in hostility to God.

The Psalmist describes such a religion. Israel was in difficult circumstances. They were being mocked by their enemies for their faith. They trusted in God. And what was God doing for them now that they were in trouble? And what sense was there in having a god who didn’t give you an insurance policy against all problems?

Our instinct at that point would be to pray to God and say, Lord show them up. Do them in and deliver us. But the Psalmist’s prayer is, not unto us, oh Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory. For Thy mercy and for Thy truth’s sake. This is not the time to vindicate man and to prove that a humanistic perspective can be vindicated, but the glory is Thine. And show forth Thyself however you do, in such a way to establish Thy sovereignty, Thy glory. To vindicate Thyself rather than us. Wherefore should the heathen say, where is now their God? They deserve to be confounded for mocking at Thee rather than at us. Their god is a god fashioned out of silver and gold, the work of man’s hands. But our God is in the heavens, He hath done whatsoever he has pleased. Our God is not bound by man nor by his wishes. As absolute sovereign, maker of heaven and earth, He does all things according to his own pleasure. When god’s men make him their own image, are speechless, they can neither hear nor smell nor walk nor live. They that make them are like unto them. So is everyone that trusteth him then. Every humanistic god involves, ultimately, a lifeless creation, the work of man’s hands. Whether he be an actual image fashioned by a sculptor, or a creation of man’s minds. He is less than man.

And so is everyone that trusteth in such a god. True religion, the Psalmist makes emphatic, is God centered . Our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. This is real faith, when a man rejoices, not in what God has done for me when I’m in trouble, but our God has done whatsoever He hath pleases. That the essence of humanistic religion is to want a god who is like a spare tire. There when you need him, and the rest of the time locked up in the trunk, out of sight, out of mind. True religion is God centered. False religion is man centered. In every humanistic religion, the purpose of the gods is to please men. And to bear the blame if things go wrong. Why does god permit such things to happen? Why do the gods allow the evil to prosper? But in true religion God is not governed by man, but governs him, in every age and situation He does whatsoever he pleases. In true religion, not only is God the absolute Lord, but God is all righteous, all holy, and if there be guilt it is man’s. Not unto us, not unto us oh Lord, but unto Thy name give glory. This is a very timely issue. Pick up any day’s paper. Read about the political and other crisis. You are reading what essentially is a religious perspective and presentation. Very seldom do the writers face up to the religious implications of what they say. But their implications, their presuppositions are inescapably religious. This morning I picked up the paper to find evidence of this to bring to you. And I found something that was really a classic.

In the LA Times, a very devout humanistic publication, in the first page of the opinions section, there is an article by Irving Crystal, entitled ‘Welfare: Best Intentions, Worst Results’. Irving Crystal is one of our more intelligent liberal scholars. His writings, even though I haven’t been able to agree with them yet, are always intelligent. They face up to the issues even though they do not answer them from our perspective. The title ‘Welfare: Best Intentions, Worst Results’ of course is revelatory. It assumes that man’s intentions are good. That the intentions of the welfare program are good. Now to analyze this article at some length to point out why we are dealing at every turn with a religion, the religion of fallen man. Let us see what Crystal has to say. He begins by a survey of an article of welfarism, or pauperism, as it was then called, written in 1835, by Alexis de Tocqueville, a French scholar. De Tocqueville pointed out that in France, Spain and Portugal, the poor were far poorer than in England. In fact, they were poorer than the English who were on relief, on welfare. But in none of these poorer countries was there a pauper problem, or a welfare problem, of the kind that was agitating English society and English politics. So, the people on welfare in England were better off than the poor in other countries, but it was England that had a pressing problem with regard to welfare. Crystal points out that Tocqueville’s answer was twofold. First of all, de Tocqueville said that urbanization and industrialization made the poor more dependent on public charity for minimum level of subsistence. Whereas in an agrarian, a farming economy, the poorest laborer could grow enough food to avoids starvation. However, the second reason was even more important.

In a prosperous society, such as England in 1835, with a booming economy, the idea of poverty undergoes continual redefinition. As a result, there is, what a modern sociologists would call, relative deprivation. In other words, if the standards are higher, the definition of what constitutes poverty becomes continually higher. As a matter of fact, the definition of those who are poor has been redefined several times in the last decade in the United States. Then de Tocqueville went on to say that the reason in England there was a welfare problem was that the average standard of living a man can hope for in the course of his life is higher than any other country of the world. This greatly facilitates the extension of pauperism in that kingdom. In other words, there were greater expectations. But the reason was even more complex. The reason rests in human nature, he said. “There are,” and Tocqueville wrote, “two incentives to work. The need to live and the desire to improve the conditions of life. Experience has proven that the majority of men can be sufficiently motivated to work only by the first of these incentives. The need to live. The second is only effective with a small minority. A law which gives all the poor a right to pubic aid, whatever the origin of their poverty, weakens or destroys the first stimulant, and leaves only the second intact.” Unquote. In other words, de Tocqueville said, since men work because they need to live, or to improve their conditions, and only those with a high motivation want to improve their conditions, the rest just want to get by. If you provide welfare, which will enable them to get by, then they will, in increasing numbers, go to welfare.

Of course this is what happened in England. By 1843 it had reached such a crisis with the welfare rolls skyrocketing, that the nation was at a critical point. Fortunately however, there was at the same time an extensive revival of Christian faith. And under the leadership of evangelicals in parliament, they simply terminated all welfare. This immediately created, of course, some dislocation, but with in two or three years all those people who were on welfare were absorbed into the labor force. And England then went on to its greatest period of prosperity and imperial expansion in all its history. It became the great power. Unfortunately, by the end of the century, a novelist named Charles Dickens began to write novels of a bleeding heart variety, very capably, very sentimentally. In which he was continually bleeding for the poor. And so they began to pass welfare laws, and since then Britain has been progressively on the skids. Now, Crystal, as he comments on this, I’ve digressed somewhat to bring in something of a historical perspective, goes on to say, “At this point we are bound to draw up short and take our leave of Tocqueville. Such {?} conclusions derived from a less than benign view of human nature do not recommend themselves either to the twentieth century political imagination, or to the American political temperament. We do not want to think that our instincts of social compassion might have dismal consequences. Not accidentally but inextricably. We simply cannot believe that the universe is so constituted. We much prefer if a choice has to be made, to have a good opinion of mankind, and a poor opinion of our socio-economic system.” Unquote.

Well with such a perspective, Marxism is inescapable. Socialism is inescapable. Because what is he saying? Tocqueville’s perspective rests on a religious view that we cannot accept. It says that man is a sinner. But we want to believe that man is good. That evil is in our socio-economic system, it’s in the system, the establishment, capitalism. Or whatever your environment is.

So you do not say there is anything wrong in man that makes him glom onto welfare if he can get it. Somehow it’s the system. Man is good. Then Crystal goes on to analyze our present welfare explosion of the 1960’s and early 70’s. We’ve had a very serious one. What he wants to do is somehow to eliminate Tocqueville without being to obvious. And he admits that between 1964 and 68 we had general prosperity of a kind not known since World War 2. But at the same time, he says, we had the biggest welfare explosion in all history. What’s the reason for this? Well, as he analyzes the works of several people who’ve been prominent in the war of poverty and elsewhere, {?} and Howard and others, he says, yes the number of poor people who are eligible for welfare will increase as one elevates the official definition of poverty and need. The war on poverty elevated these official definitions, therefore an increase in the number of eligibles automatically follow. Then, as he pointed out, next, in many areas such as New York City and many other larger cities, welfare benefits actually outstrip wages for many people. As a result, these people can make more money by going on welfare, and they do so. Then too, the ottis{?} of economic opportunity and the welfare rights movement and other groups, have actually solicited people to go onto welfare. And the courts have cooperated by striking down various legal obstacles, such as residence requirements. And so he says, something appears to have gone wrong. A liberal and compassionate social policy has bred all sorts of unanticipated and perverse consequences.

In other words, we’ve made some moves and somehow they have led to wrong results. Now he doesn’t want deny the truth of Tocqueville entirely, so he concludes to say, to raise such questions is to point to the fundamental problems of our welfare system, a vicious circle in which the best intentions merge into the worst results. It is not easy to imagine just how we might break out of this vicious circle. One might suggest, however, that we begin by going back and reading Tocqueville more respectfully. We may not find the truth in him, but the exercise may help liberate us from our own twentieth century illusions.” Now that sounds very tolerant and broadminded, he’s ready to give some respectful attention to Tocqueville. But what Crystal, with all due respect to a very intelligent man, has done, is to buzz over the issue and to obscure the issue he at one point raises. That it is religious. Is God sovereign or is man? And where is sin? In man or in the environment? In man or his socio-economic systems? His answer shines through very clearly. He does not want to blame man. He is a humanist. To do so would be to abandon everything that he believes. And the religion of fallen man is a belief in man. Somehow things are going to be manipulated and you’re going to come up with good results. This is the futility of humanistic religion. Of manmade gods, they that make them are like unto them, so is everyone that trusteth in them. Man is the problem, but the humanist still seeks the answer in man. It is like asking a murderer to be a protector of human life, or a rapist to be a protector of a woman’s virtue. And yet the humanist wants the answer in man, even when he admits the problem is there.

To cite one other example very briefly, Tom Brayden{?}, formerly of southern California, perhaps still residing here, now writes a column for certain papers. And in a recent column of just this past month, he expressed very great concern over the moral decline in the United States during the 1960’s. And he said that violence and lawlessness had developed, which no one would have imagined would have been possible in 1961. And so he asks, have we lost our belief that reasonable men may dispute the truth and thereby redefine it? Have we lost our sense of responsibility toward one another and toward the community as a whole? Or have we all gone crazy? Brayden{?} goes on to say “that disorder, or anti-law is now used as a weapon, and this in itself is becoming a moral problem. His answer is however, very revealing. He says, perhaps we need a new moral code, or a new education, or as Henry Adams once suggested, a new social mind. Every generation of Americans has struggled to retain and apply power, and every generation has worried about the power it created. But in 1971 we seem suddenly to be confronted with complexities in the use of that power, which we did not imagine even ten years ago. Unless we can agree upon a morality which unite us in dealing with then, we may be looking back ten years from now on a decade that was violently coercive.” Unquote. Here is his answer. Let us get together and agree upon a new morality. One which all men can unite on. Well the problem is that all men are virtually today, united on a new morality, that every man is his own god and a law unto himself. This is existentialism. This is the philosophy of the Fall. This is pragmatism. John Dewey’s progressivism, it is the reigning philosophy of the schools, from the public schools on up through the universities. Our problem is that men have, by and large, agreed upon a new morality. And it’s the wrong one. As a result, Brayden{?} reveals the problem, not the answer.

For men have agreed upon being their own gods and their own moral law. On a do it yourself religion. Thus Tom Brayden’s{?} principles are themselves to blame for our plight. Today man, after Tom Brayden{?} and after Emmanuel Cant, originally, has agreed that man’s religious consciousness should be the new source of truth and revelation, rather than the Word of God. But instead of seeking truth from God, men should seek it from within, from their own religious consciousness. Man himself as his own source of revelation. Truth comes out of man, we are told, and therefore man’s experience needs to be developed. Religion is now no longer thus saith the Lord, according to humanism, but thus say I. The word according to man. This is why it is held that mans’ word, or man’s act is the word of power, if only men will love enough, then our problems will be solved. If only men will give enough, or if only men will do this or that, man can then save himself. And the futility of it is that it seeks the answer where the problem lies. Thomas Boston, who wrote two centuries ago on the fourfold nature of man, said of fallen man’s religion and fallen man’s attempts to save himself, that it is like thinking that a man can leap out of Delilah’s lap into Abraham’s bosom. He went on to say, and I quote, “The un-renewed will is wholly perverse in reference to man’s chief and highest end. The natural man’s chief end is not God, but himself. For such men in their religion, God is the means and self the answer, yea, their chief end.” Unquote. The religion of fallen man is very much with us. It governs our churches and our politics, our schools and our homes. And instead of offering man any true hope, it only intensifies the fall of man. But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he pleases. And not all the apostasy nor all the revolutions of man can stay His hand or deflect His course.

Therefore we can with the Psalmist agree, oh Israel trust thou in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. And we can unite in his prayer when he says, not unto us oh Lord, not unto us but unto Thy name give glory. For Thy mercy and for Thy truth’s sake. Let us pray. Almighty God our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee that Thou art a God beyond us. Beyond our control, sovereign Lord and Creator, Maker of all things. And therefore our Savior. We thank Thee that in Thy grace and mercy Thou hast redeemed us, and given us such glorious promises in Jesus Christ whose word unto us is yea and amen. Therefore we praise and magnify Thy name, we rejoice that Thou art sovereign, and that Thou art merciful. That Thou art Lord of heaven and earth and our Redeemer. That there is nothing to great nor to small for Thee. Oh Lord, how great Thou art and we praise Thee. In Jesus name, Amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson? Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. Now, we need to understand the rational of idolatry. If you were to go to India for example, which perhaps has more idols than any other country, and asks someone who was an intelligent worshipper about the idols, they would say, now, don’t be ridiculous, we’re not actually worshipping that image, but what it represents. And the many hands of Shiva represent that fact that he is omnipotent, that he is able to act anywhere and everywhere. And the many eyes you see on that particular idol represent his all seeing perspective, and so on. And they can give you a fairly intelligent explanation of the particular form of the idol. Sounds very good, sounds very intelligent. Unfortunately however, apart from the fact that many of these simple people will take the idol very literally, the fact is that even for the intelligent Hindu, what results is that, having declared that he can represent god, who is beyond representation, he ultimately conforms that image and the idea behind that image to his {?}. This is what I expect god to be. And so their gods ultimately end up, however much the image may evoke omniscience or omnipotence, ultimately a very limited god. They that make them are like unto them. And ultimately all their gods, like men, pass away. And nothingness is ultimate. So all their idols just represent higher powers, but beyond them ultimately is nothingness, nirvana, extinction.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. Well, it’s a good point. The aesthetic aspect of these idols. The aesthetic aspect usually comes in when the religion begins to disintegrate. It becomes primary. This is very, very obvious, for example, from Greek religion. The earliest Greek images were very definitely not to the modern taste. They were stylized, they didn’t have that aspect of realism which characterized the classic age of Greek sculpture.

And the classic age of Greek sculpture being realistic, has caught the imagination of the centuries. However, in that classic age the faith in the gods was giving way to a totally humanistic perspective, in which the gods, however humanistic they were, gave way to man, entirely. They had been deified men. So that earlier, for example, the tomb of Zeus was pointed out to Traverse. Zeus was a king. He was a deified king who now in his spirit ruled above. But from worshipping the deified kings and or queens, gods and goddesses, they passed on to the pure worship of man. And therefore Venus and Zeus became representations of the ideal man. What man saw himself as being. They are impersonal in that respect. This is why, in a sense, there is no real feel in any personal, emotional way, to say Mercury or Zeus or Venus, of the classical period. You can say, objectively, that this is a very beautiful body, very beautiful head, but it is impersonal. Whereas of course the art of the modern era, prior to the most recent developments at the beginning of this century, was intensely personal. The Venuses depicted, say a century ago, were very personal, and the Zeus depictions were highly personal, they were a particular individual. What the Greeks therefore in their aesthetics were showing, was what man dreamed he was going to become, when he became a kind of superman. So the Venus and the Zeus represented what man believed, what, when he established his perfect order, he himself would become. Perfect proportions, the perfect features, superman. So the aesthetic came in when humanism began to develop to its logical end.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. If you didn’t hear the question, it was, that helps explain why the figure Zeus is at the United Nations. Because the idealized figure of Zeus was the ideal of man. In the modern term, superman. The man who is to come. The man who is the goal of human evolution. Because the Greek philosophers were evolutionary in their thinking. Incidentally, this is why Aristotle was always so interested in freaks. Any time there was a freak birth, like a five legged calf, Aristotle and others of his associates were Johnny on the spot to find out about it. Because this might be the next stage in evolution. Now this is why, when in the book of Acts, Paul began to speak about the resurrection, you remember of Mars Hill, he immediately had a sizable audience of philosophers? Is this the next stage in man’s evolution? Let’s hear about this. You have a report that somebody actually rose from the dead, boy, that’s exciting news. Important news. This may be the next stage of evolution. Let’s hear you. So it was a formal gathering, they had heard him speak, they wanted him to address all of them, immediately. So they gathered to crowd around him. But when instead of giving it a humanistic, an anthropocentric framework of reference, an evolutionary perspective, he spoke of the sovereign God and His purpose, and Christ is the Son of God, the Redeemer, who having risen from the dead, would return as their judge, they turned away like that and called him a rag picker of odds and ends of information. Because, you see, this was a challenge to their humanistic religion. The world of the Roman empire, the Greco-Roman culture, would have accepted the Gospel if it had been adapted and the sovereignty of God set aside and the Resurrection presented as the next stage in evolution. This is the significance of Paul’s failure on Mars Hill.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Very good question. What is the difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Christ? Now there are certain schools of thought, pre-millennial, which make a very marked difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. It is highly artificial. This is why, for example, the whole of the Gospel of Matthew was referred to the kingdom age in the millennial era, because Matthew always uses kingdom of heaven. Well why does Mathew use it? We’re told in the apostolic era, the literature of that era, that Matthew wrote for the Jews. Now this immediately gives us the answer. It was a prejudice of the Jews, and a very respectful one, to avoid the use of the name of God. To avoid saying Jehovah or Yahweh, we don’t really know how it’s pronounced, because they would not print the vowels. They would just write the consonants. They felt so strongly about taking the name of the Lord in vain that they decided not to use the name of the Lord. Lean over backwards, as it were. As a result, instead of saying the kingdom of God, it was the rabbinic practice, which seeped down to all the common people, to say instead, the kingdom of heaven. Not the kingdom of God. So, since Matthew’s gospel was written specifically for the Jewish audience, to demonstrate to them that in fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus was the heir to the throne of David, the direct lineal descendant in the royal dynastic line of King David, and therefore the true King, the Messianic King, he used that phrase. Kingdom of heaven. Whereas of course, Luke, writing as a Gentile, for a Gentile audience, and Mark, writing apparently in Rome, with the help of Peter, and writing again for a Gentile audience, used kingdom of God. There was no problem about using it.

The term kingdom of Christ is cognate to the other two. So all three have the same meaning. And it leads to dispensationalism and a misunderstanding of Scripture and, in fact, an inability to understand it, when you distinguish between the terms.

Well, our time is up, I have a couple of announcements. A week from tomorrow the Chalcedon Christian School Teacher seminar will be held at the town hall meeting room, Monday and Tuesday, at Knottsberry{?} Farm. Those of you who are interested in registering for it, please see me.

Next Sunday morning, Reverend Robert Thoburne{?} will be our speaker. Since he will be here to carry on the seminar together with Mrs. Thoburne{?} and myself in a minor role, we’re happy that we will be able to have him as our speaker. So please pass the word onto others. Those of you who were at the Chalcedon Guild banquet in May, you know what an eloquent speaker he is.

Let’s bow our heads now for the benediction. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always. Amen.